Riding the L
by Perspicacity
Summary: A short bit of speculation on how the events at the end of Changes play out. Contains spoilers for Changes, by Jim Butcher. Buy his book and read it before you read this.


A/N: Story based on The Dresden Files, which is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Many thanks to the folks at DLP for their comments and in particular to Big D, who posted the challenge to which this short piece was a response.

Spoilers: Read _Changes,_ by Jim Butcher, before you read this. In fact, buy it in hardcover from the author's website to help support his writing.

* * *

**Riding the L**

by Perspicacity

* * *

[The italicized passage is an excerpt from _Changes_, by Jim Butcher, p. 438.]

_I looked down at a hole in my shirt, just to the left of my sternum._

_I thought, Why did I pick the shirt with the bullet hole in it?_

_Then I fell off the back of the boat, and into the icy water of Lake Michigan._

_It hurt, but only for a second. After that, my whole body felt deliciously warm, monstrously tired, and the sleep that had evaded me seemed, finally, to be within reach._

_It got dark._

_It got quiet._

_And I realized that I was all by myself._

"_Die alone," whispered a bitter, hateful old man's voice._

"_Hush, now," whispered a woman's voice. It sounded familiar._

_I never moved, but I saw a light ahead of me. With the light, I saw that I was moving down a tunnel, directly toward it. Or maybe it was moving toward me. The light looked like something warm and wonderful and I began to move toward it._

_Right up until I heard a sound._

_Typical, I thought. Even when you're dead, it doesn't get any easier._

_The light rushed closer, and I distinctly heard the horn and engine of an oncoming train._

* * *

My stilled blood seeped slowly into the cold water, yet I was standing on a platform, my hands in the pockets of my jeans.

I was drifting into oblivion, alone in the muddy depths, yet a crowded train, all stainless steel and gangsta graffiti, screeched to a stop in front of me.

I was wet and I was dry.

I was confused more than anything. I tried to open my Sight to suss out what was going on, but it was denied me.

I wondered who had shot me, but found myself noticing that thoughts like these no longer seemed as important as the nagging feeling that I _really_ needed to catch the right train.

It looked like the L and sounded like the L. Stinking as it did of wino piss, it even smelled like the L. I tried to remember when I rode the CTA last, but my mind was strangely hazy. I had a fleeting recollection of catching the Blue Line off the Loop out to O-Hare with Luccio, but the memory was gone as soon as I tried to focus on it.

The doors slid open with a rattle and a hydraulic hiss and they seemed to hang open, as if waiting for something.

"Buddy, you gonna get on or what?" a man asked behind me. I turned to look at him. He was about my age, tall, but not overly so, with baggy, blue coveralls and a White Sox baseball cap turned backward. He had dusky, mulatto skin and wore a worn plastic lanyard around his neck.

I glanced at his ID, which read, "Charon."

The last of my double vision left me and I was all here on this platform in front of this Charon guy, whose name didn't seem ominous, really.

"What is this place?"

He snorted. "What do you think? Someone popped a cap in your ass, moron." He felt in his pocket for a cigarette.

I glared at him. "So, Ferryman, shouldn't you have a boat or something? Or a jet ski? What's with the train?"

He snapped his fingers and a blue spark appeared, lighting the tip of the cigarette. He puffed a few times. "It's a last 'kind gesture' to the damned to ride something familiar."

He had made smug finger quotes around the words 'kind gesture' and I decided that I disliked him immensely.

"If you ask me, which nobody does, it just makes it that much worse when you get your ass tossed into Phlegethon to be deep-fat-fried."

"Sounds delightful," I said. "How's the dental plan?"

He blew smoke at my face and I got a lungful of cheap menthol. "Quick tour for idiots who can't even notice they're dead, much less read a sign." He gestured to the train that was pulling away. "That one's headed to Archeron, the River of Sorrow. Figured it'd be best to send to you first, given that you just got done waxing your honey, but you're SOL now. Next train goes to Lethe, River of Forgetfulness, probably the easiest gig in all the Underworld and a good second option, though a bit of a pussy's way out. If you're going to sin, man up and take your lumps. Phlegethon, as I said, is the River of Fire. You'd have done okay there, given your pyro tendencies, though with the whole Winter Knight thing I'd advise against it. Styx is the River of Hate--probably not so great an option, since that you just sent an honor guard Jonesing to hump your bony ass for eternity. Cocytus, Lamentation, would normally be the last, but that line's down. We're routing 'em to Archeron instead."

I nodded. "So forget everything, burn, or play bottom to a bunch of pissed off Reds."

"Those are the _good_ options, man. Miss your train or refuse to get on one and we send you off on the Tartarus Express." He shivered. "You don't want to go there."

Somehow, I always figured that Michael's corner man, if he didn't have my back, would at least keep an omniscient eye out for me. I guess I was wrong. Call me petty, but it seemed the least he could do after I'd helped him so many times--the sword thing, the Denarians, the soul fire... And that's not to mention my having saved Michael's family, multiple times, even.

It goes to show that no holy deed going unpunished.

"How about Elysium?" I asked.

He snorted. "Shit, paradise? After what you did? 'Sides, to get on, you need an obolus, a token, for the Express. You didn't wake up munching on one did you?"

I shook my head.

"No coin, no eternity with dimpled hotties who don't know the words, 'gag reflex.' Now I gotta go taunt the next guy, so enjoy your damnation or whatever." Charon turned and walked into the shadows, flipping me off.

I returned the one-finger salute.

* * *

I woke up to a pounding in my head that was synchronized with the blaring polka. My chest burned, as if someone had gashed it open. I felt for my ribs and noticed that, well, someone had gashed open my chest.

I propped myself on my elbows to a half-sitting position, trying my best to keep my flayed guts from flopping onto the table, and opened my eyes. The light was very bright and I had to squint. I cleared my throat and heard a loud crash.

"H-harry?" a familiar voice stammered from on the floor.

"Hey Butters. Think you can get me some aspirin? This headache's a killer."

He tried to say something, but gave up when his voice refused to work and he scampered off looking like he'd seen a ghost. I stared down at the livid burn on my hand in the shape of Lash's sigil. Then I inhaled sharply, doing my best to avoid screaming as my ungentle tenant started mending my body in the quickest, but most painful way possible.

I had a really bad feeling about this. Hosting a fallen angel nursing several grudges was going to be a real bitch.

It wasn't one of my brighter moments, trying to buy my way into paradise by summoning a Blackened Denarius and using it as a subway token, though I have to say, leaving Charon with another line to repair is easily one of the most entertaining.


End file.
